


Inhumane (the prequel i guess)

by bean17



Series: Run [1]
Category: Among Us (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Murder mystery sort of thing, Prequel, but I thought it was best to put the warning on, just in case, tags are confusing, the skeld, violence isn’t that graphic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:55:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 3,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26997064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bean17/pseuds/bean17
Summary: A murder mystery set in the world of among us...
Series: Run [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1970374
Comments: 46
Kudos: 9





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> I uploaded Run first, however I suggest you read it after this one. Reading them in a different order won’t spoil anything, it’s just more fluid :)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s chapter one so yep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also I uploaded it before Wednesday (as I said I would)!  
> (lol N.B. I’m terrible at deadlines)

It took a few days to get used to the feeling of being in space. It wasn’t just the physical aspects, but also the feeling that we couldn’t go back. Well, not for another six months at least. 

They told us our task was to gather information and conduct ground-breaking research. However, on what, we weren’t really sure. Due to safety reasons, we had to keep our suits on at all times: they were coloured so as to differentiate. I guess the weirdest thing was not seeing someone else’s face for so long. But you get used to it. What I didn’t get used to was how little everybody talked. We had meal times in the cafeteria where it was completely silent- totally opposite to the previous missions I had been on. It was sort of... I guess you could say eerie? Everyone just got on with their tasks, I wasn’t used to that. 

A few days in, I was inspecting samples in medbay, and Yellow walked in. I’d passed her a few times before in navi, but never really spoken. She seemed to be the only other person on the ship who actually made an effort to socialise. I smiled at her awkwardly and she nodded in my direction. Then I turned back to my task. 

About a week in, everyone seemed to be settling in fine. Most preferred not to chat, but I’d had a few conversations with Green and White. They seemed chill. It was White’s first mission. He had had to leave his kids at home- an opportunity like this was too big to turn down. It got me thinking back to when I first started out: I’ve never really done anything other than missions. Nothing to worry about leaving behind; nothing to lose. 

About a month in, and we’ve had our first reactor meltdown. It was stressful to say the least. The lights were blaring and I didn’t know what was happening: stuff like this never happened on my last ship- mission control had everything calculated down to the millisecond. Though I soon realised that mission control wouldn’t be helping us out much on _this_ mission...

Things happened quickly after that. The first dead body was found in electrical the week after. Black found it. I felt sorry for them, but they handled it well. I don’t think I could have kept my cool as well as they did. I was in admin at the time, I heard shouting down the hall and ran out to find Green also on their way. By the time we got there, a crowd had already formed. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to unsee what I saw at that moment: it was White. His body was crumpled on the ground like a puppet. As head of medbay, I had to make the final call, but it was clear he was dead. His neck had been snapped efficiently. The break was clean, and his death was quick. My mind wandered to who was possibly capable of this- it had to be someone experienced in the field of medicine. I guess I was the obvious suspect: as head of medbay this was within my capabilities... but I knew it wasn’t me. Pink had mentioned working as an emergency nurse for a while, but it was just a filler job till a space opened up on a mission. Dinner was completely silent, more so than usual, even the ship seemed to be mourning White’s death.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vote in the comments who you think it is (I’m curious).  
> Characters are:  
> Blue  
> Yellow  
> Green  
>  ~~White~~  
>  Black  
> Pink  
> Red  
> Purple  
> Cyan  
> Brown


	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s chapter two so yep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just gonna remind whoever is reading this not to read Run yet. I’ve already added it to the series but make sure you finish this work first (not all the chapters have been released yet btw). Sorry.

It was barely a day before the next one. Everyone had unconsciously been sticking to the buddy-method. Since Black and I had similar tasks, we went around together. It was Yellow and Red who found the body this time: Purple, dead in reactor. They were killed in much the same style as White had been- very efficient, quick death. However, this one had very clearly been done by one of the knives from the cafeteria. It had been discarded right beside the body. It seemed the killer was mocking us: they were so confident that they would succeed that they didn’t even care about being found out. Nonetheless, I took the weapon for testing. 

Dinner that night was loud, very loud. It was the first time on this mission where I couldn’t even hear the low thrum emitted by the engines. Everyone was very stressed- justifiably so. Two people had died, and one of us had killed them. Yet I felt calm: I was trained for this (well not exactly this), but I’ve watched enough true crime to know that the next thing we had to do was conduct interviews. Naturally, I took the leadership role. 

After putting the knife into the sample machine in medbay, I began to set things up for the interview. Admin was the best place to hold them- there was a decent amount of privacy and it was the room that we spent the most time in overall, except for the cafeteria obviously. I wanted everyone to feel comfortable, how else would I get a confession out of the murderer? 

One by one I sat down with everyone and recorded their alibis, making notes of key information: such as tasks, schedules and buddies. My notes were as follows:

_Yellow: Swipe card ( **admin** ), divert power ( **navi + O2** ), start reactor ( **reactor** \- which led her to find White), and upload data ( **weapons** ). Buddy: Red (alibis match)_

_Red: Swipe card ( **admin** ), fix wiring ( **navi** ), accept diverted power ( **security** ), unlock manifolds ( **reactor** ), and empty garbage ( **cafeteria** ). Buddy: Yellow (alibis match)_

_Cyan: Fix wiring ( **cafeteria** ), fuel engines ( **storage + lower engine** ), prime shields ( **shields** ). Buddy: Brown (alibis match)_

_Brown: Swipe card ( **admin** ), fix wiring ( **storage** ), empty garbage ( **storage** ), accept diverted power ( **shields** ). Buddy: Cyan (alibis match)_

_Black: Swipe card ( **admin** ), fuel engines ( **storage + upper engine** ), align engine output ( **upper engine** ), submit scan ( **medbay** ). Buddy: Me (alibis match)_

_Blue (me): Download data ( **cafeteria** ), inspect sample ( **medbay** ), submit scan ( **medbay** ), collect sample ( **medbay** ). Buddy: Black (alibis match)_

_Pink: Divert power ( **electrical** ), fix wiring ( **electrical** ), download data ( **electrical** ), empty garbage ( **cafeteria** ), download data ( **comms** ). Buddy: N/A_

_Green: Accept diverted power ( **security** ), watching cams ( **security** ), calibrate distributor ( **electrical** ). Buddy: Purple (dead)_

_Purple (as said by Green): ..., watching cams ( **security** ), went to **Reactor** , ... ... Buddy: Green_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vote in the comments who you think it is (I’m curious).  
> Characters are:  
> Blue  
> Yellow  
> Green  
>  ~~White~~  
>  Black  
> Pink  
> Red  
>  ~~Purple~~  
>  Cyan  
> Brown
> 
> Also it took me longer to do all the formatting than it took me to actually write the chapter. Please remind me to never overuse ‘emphasis’ and ‘strong’ ever again. I’m going to be dreaming about formatting HTML tonight. Additionally, if there are any typos or mistakes in that section, kindly ignore them because I think I’ll cry if I have to read through it once more.


	3. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s chapter three so yep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t want to jinx it, but I’ve been managing to post each chapter before the end of the day so far...

That night I barely slept, hours flew by as I poured over the notes I had made, desperately making connections. When I found something suspicious, another thing tended to pop up and I’d forget about the previous one. I don’t think I made much progress... all I managed to do was make myself confused and exhausted. 

The results for the tests I had conducted on the weapon came back, confirming my fears: everyone’s fingerprints were on it. 

The atmosphere on the ship was awkward for the next week. It was a hushed silence- not like the previous types, this one was secretive. I didn’t like it. 

Days passed without another murder. In a twisted way, I found myself wishing for another one, just so that we could break out of the new, muted routine that had settled over us. 

Though it seems I jinxed it. That evening, I was in the cafeteria finishing up on tasks, to tell the truth I had fallen asleep for a minute, and I was jolted awake by a sinister-sounding _bang_ that came from the other side of the ship. My first thought was that some idiot had pulled the lever to open the garbage chute too hard, but as I began to wake up fully, it dawned on me. There had been another murder.

I was one of the first to get to the body. Green and Cyan were already in shields by the time I arrived. Yellow arrived soon after with Black. Pink came in last. This time it was Brown who’d been killed. His body was slumped over the controls: clearly he had been in the middle of priming the shields when the murderer struck. This murder was slightly more gruesome than the others, and it was fresh. I asked Pink to help me, and together we lifted his body off the controls and onto the ground. By doing that, we noticed that not only had he been shot, but he’d also been hit in the head with a _lot_ of force. The suit hid most of the wounds, but by the looks of the shape and arrangement of the blood splatters we could see that his skull had been mutilated- caved in by the hit. The killer must have used a bat of some sort: a long stick-like weapon as it would increase the amount of force with which they could have hit him. Yellow paled when she saw the smashed pane in Brown’s suit: the shards of glass were covered in fresh blood and many of them were buried in the face beneath it. Muttering something about how her stomach couldn’t take this, Yellow excused herself and ran off towards medbay. This death marked an ominous turning point that we wouldn’t be able to turn back from.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vote in the comments who you think it is (I’m curious).  
> Characters are:  
> Blue  
> Yellow  
> Green  
>  ~~White~~  
>  Black  
> Pink  
> Red  
>  ~~Purple~~  
>  Cyan  
>  ~~Brown~~


	4. Chapter Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s chapter four so yep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the short chapter. It’s my fault: why do I always leave it so last minute??? I promised I’d upload a chapter a day, but that usually means I upload at like 5 minutes to 12am. Well I mean it’s still technically a chapter a day tho.

When people are scared, they tend to lash out. This was exactly what happened at dinner that night... The third death was the breaking point for many of us. Yellow was struggling, but she managed to keep up a façade so as not to worry us all. Personally, I was worried about Cyan. Despite usually being silent, today they piped up with a suggestion. A suggestion that I was not proud of considering, but one that became more and more tempting as time went on...  
“Do you think we should eject people?”  
Dinner was silent after that. All of us too scared of what that could mean for the future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vote in the comments who you think it is (I’m curious).  
> Characters are:  
> Blue  
> Yellow  
> Green  
>  ~~White~~  
>  Black  
> Pink  
> Red  
>  ~~Purple~~  
>  Cyan  
>  ~~Brown~~


	5. Chapter Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s chapter five so yep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhhhhh, I’m sorry I forgot! And I was so intent on updating once a day. Oh well, I guess you’ll just get two today. Sorry.

Due to the drama of the past weeks, we had all fallen way behind on tasks. This meant that we needed to increase efficiency drastically in a short amount of time. From now on, the buddy system would be discontinued (which in hindsight was a bad idea, but it seemed reasonable at the time). Instead, we would do our tasks in short bursts of rapidity, lasting from 15-30mins, then all meet back at the cafeteria at the end of each slot. The idea was suggested by Red, and we took a vote. The response was unanimous: yes. 

Unsurprisingly, the next day, there was another death. And this time we had even less evidence since everyone was focused on completing their tasks as quickly as possible. Green had found it this time, allegedly. When Pink ran in, they were crouching over the dead body. Black’s body. 

This murder was far from tidy: they were losing their neatness. Blood created a pool with a radius of 2 feet around the body. More was splattered on the walls and wiring panels. Black’s suit had been ripped in the places the knife had come down, and there were many. They looked like a squashed grape. Barely recognisable and battered to a pulp. If it wasn’t for the black suit, I don’t think even their family could have identified them. The only word that came to mind: inhumane. 

As I had suspected, when I checked in medbay for the knife, it was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vote in the comments who you think it is (I’m curious).  
> Characters are:  
> Blue  
> Yellow  
> Green  
>  ~~White~~  
>  ~~Black~~  
>  Pink  
> Red  
>  ~~Purple~~  
>  Cyan  
>  ~~Brown~~


	6. Chapter Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s chapter six so yep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 69 hits. Nice.
> 
> (Sorry, I had to)

Everyone was too shaken up from the scene earlier to finish tasks, so we decided to gather in medbay and attempt to talk it over. Admittedly, things weren’t looking great for Green- Pink was dead-set on the notion that Green was the murderer, and Green didn’t have much of an alibi; nobody did. However, if the weapon could be found, it could potentially reveal to us who the real culprit was all along. And what better way to catch somebody out? Surprise inspections. 

We all made our way to the sleeping cabins for an inspection. I drew up the rota as follows:

_Yellow == > Pink ==> Red ==> Cyan ==> Green ==> Blue (Me) ==> Yellow_

The idea was that Yellow would examine Pink’s cabin, Pink would examine Red’s cabin, Red would examine Cyan’s cabin, and so on and so forth. It seemed to work well, however, nobody found anything, apart from some prohibited items in Red’s bag that really didn’t matter anymore: liquid hand sanitiser and a packet of crisps. 

At dinner that evening, Cyan brought up the topic of kicking people off the ship again. They were for, so was Pink, and surprisingly Red was too. Yellow and I seemed to be the only ones left who had morals, and Green was the one at highest risk of being ejected. Though, not that this excuses what I did in any way, shape, or form, Pink _did_ give a very convincing speech. In short, I switched my ‘No’ to a ‘Yes’ and, just like that, the vote was in favour of ejection. 

Now all we had to find out was who we should eject. Now that we had decided we were going to do it, everyone was filled with a twisted impatience to just kick somebody off already. The clear answer was Green- they should have shouted when they found Black’s body, but they didn’t. And since Pink ran in when she did, they were put in a very suspicious position indeed. But Green was still pleading innocent... It was a dilemma. Of course, we decided to take a vote. 

I managed the bowl as everyone seemed to trust me. We each put a slip of paper in it and I was to count them up at the end and read them out to everybody. There were only six of us left, anyway, so it wasn’t too many to count. The votes were supposed to be anonymous, but I recognised Pink’s handwriting. She had voted for Green, unsurprisingly. I read out the ballots as I took them out of the hat. They were as follows:

(pink) _Green_  
(yellow) _Green_  
(green) _N/A_

I looked up at Green. “What do you mean N/A?”  
“I didn’t want to vote. I knew you’d all vote for me, but I couldn’t think of anyone else I’d want to see ejected” they replied, defeated.   
“Fair enough.”  
Yellow’s eyes widened and she shouted out, “Wait can I change my vote!”  
“Umm I mean I guess so? Why?”  
“I didn’t want to vote Green either but I couldn’t think of anyone else to put.”  
“Okay sure. So minus one vote for Green and plus one to skip?”  
“Yeah, thanks.”  
“No problem.” I paused to see if anyone else wanted to change their mind before continuing, “Moving on.”

(me) _Green_  
(cyan) _Green_  
(black) _Green_

Well, it was a win for eject. I read out the final results: 4 votes for Green, 2 to skip. Green’s eyes widened in fear and they turned to Yellow with a pleading look written across their face. Everyone looked at their laps awkwardly. Yellow was now the only one with morals left. 

Yellow was also the only person that didn’t stay to watch. She had said that she didn’t feel good and went to the cabins for an early night. Green seemed crestfallen at this, I guess they had formed a connection with Yellow in the time that we had been on the ship. In the moment, I hadn’t really thought through what we were doing. I didn’t think of how this would affect anyone on Earth, even anyone on the ship. We were all dead-set on the fact that it must be Green. I think the reason was that we knew that if it wasn’t Green, then we had absolutely no idea who it really was, and we weren’t ready to accept that yet. And that’s how I committed my first murder: yet another thing I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget. 

A few days passed till the next piece of evidence was revealed: the weapon that had murdered both Purple and Black- the knife from cafeteria. And where was it? In Cyan’s bag.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vote in the comments who you think it is (I’m curious).  
> Characters are:  
> Blue  
> Yellow  
>  ~~Green~~  
>  ~~White~~  
>  ~~Black~~  
>  Pink  
> Red  
>  ~~Purple~~  
>  Cyan  
>  ~~Brown~~


	7. Chapter Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s chapter seven so yep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Imaginative chapter names, no?

On the day in question, everyone was eating lunch in cafeteria. Red had one more task to complete in reactor. We all looked up at the sound of shouting- to Red sprinting into the cafeteria with a bloody knife in his hand. Out of breath and doubled over, he held it up high like a trophy of some sort.   
“Cyan! It’s- _huff_ it’s Cyan!”

Swiftly, we emptied the tables and sat down at our allocated seats in the circle. Red was clearly distressed and exhausted from running all the way here, but we waited patiently as he struggled to get his words out. The knife had been found in Cyan’s bag in their cabin. Red had needed some tools to do his task and had gone down to get them out of his bag. When he got down there, he had found Cyan’s bag open on their bed with a black handle sticking out of it. Confused, he had reached in and pulled it out. When he realised what it was, he had dropped it and yelled, sprinting as fast as he could to get back to us and report it. Cyan didn’t have much to say in way of defence other than that they had been here in caf with us all day, apart from the occasional bathroom break. Regrettably, we all voted for Cyan. Within the next hour they were also off the ship and floating round the vast expanse of space.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vote in the comments who you think it is (I’m curious).  
> Characters are:  
> Blue  
> Yellow  
>  ~~Green~~  
>  ~~White~~  
>  ~~Black~~  
>  Pink  
> Red  
>  ~~Purple~~  
>  ~~Cyan~~  
>  ~~Brown~~


	8. Chapter Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s chapter eight so yep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just curious do you guys say it like ‘ee-ject’ or like ‘eh-ject’, because I’ve been trying them both out in my head and now I don’t know which one sounds natural.
> 
> Also sorry I forgot to upload again, I was listening to a podcast (am I allowed to recommend it?: Let’s Talk About Myths, Baby! It’s about Greek myths so check it out if you’re interested I guess).
> 
> And finally, this is actually the last chapter- there are 8, not 9 (I miscounted). So, I hope you enjoyed this journey with me, I certainly did. I appreciated all your comments and feedback. Thanks for reading! Bean signing off.  
> (That all sounded much better in my head).
> 
> Though I feel I’d like to point out, if you care to continue on this journey, I am intending to write another story in this series (Inhumane, Run, possible other work). Haven’t really got anything concrete yet but we’ll see.

The next few days were tense, no deaths had occurred, but we still didn’t have a sense of closure. The murderer could very well still be on the ship, biding their time and waiting for the right moment to strike out. 

A mere five days after the ejection of Cyan, the lights were sabotaged. We all rushed to electrical, eager to fix it as quickly as possible. Everybody gathered around the switches and flicked them on and off randomly with no sense of real purpose. When one was turned on, somebody else was sure to flick it off a few seconds after. It was chaos, until, finally, we got them all back on. I felt everyone breathe a mental sigh of relief: we had all been way more scared than we were prepared to admit. Though the relief was short-lived, for when we turned around, we saw the tell-tale heap of a body in the doorway, and Yellow standing right on the other side of it. Red and I looked at each other, fear obvious on both of our faces. How could we have been so wrong?? This sweet and innocent façade was just that- a façade. I shivered as I thought of the number of times I had been in a room with her alone, the number of times I had sat right next to her in caf, the number of times we had chatted, joked, laughed together. Those memories were now tainted by the knowledge that I could have been killed any number of times... but of course, I couldn’t have. She had planned it all: I was too invested in each case to match them up and see the bigger picture. I was just a pawn in her game, and so was Red. But why? For what? If we hadn’t managed to fix the reactor meltdown, she would have gone down with us too. Unless... unless she wasn’t human- inhumane, if you will. 

Nonetheless, we needed her off the ship if we were to ever get back safely, which at this point was extremely unlikely either way. After the shock passed, Red and I managed to grab a hold of her, pulling her towards the hatch. She struggled more than Green had- shouting out that she was innocent and trying desperately to break free. Of course it was no use, we were determined and had her in a firm grip. All she could do was panic as we got closer and closer to the hatch with every second that passed. Finally, she did break away from us, using our momentary surprise to sprint off as fast as she could. We chased her down the hallways and around rooms until we finally cornered her in the corridor by navigation. This time, I think she knew it was over. We had caught her now, and this time we were decided. Dejectedly, she let us lead her away towards storage. Looking into my eyes, she mouthed one last word:

**Run**

I didn’t know what she meant then, but I do now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vote in the comments who you think it is (I’m curious).  
> Characters are:  
> Blue  
>  ~~Yellow~~  
>  ~~Green~~  
>  ~~White~~  
>  ~~Black~~  
>  ~~Pink~~  
>  Red  
>  ~~Purple~~  
>  ~~Cyan~~  
>  ~~Brown~~

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed reading this! :)


End file.
